SOAR : Stretching Our Actionable Reach

"A murmuration of people helping other people"

The purpose of Emerald Compassionate Action Network

 is to illuminate and activate people's deep need 

to contribute to the lives of others.

The SOAR networking platform is a tool 

for building collaborative projects and 

recruiting volunteers to serve those 

who have do not have 

security, prosperity and quality of life: 

the cornerstones of a culture of peace. 

The Problem: Multiple service groups and organizations representing a very large resource of time, talent and energy in Lane County are relying on decentralized, fragmented information to do their work, which often takes place in isolation from each other. The collaborations that have formed are faced with accelerating numbers of people in need. 

A Solution: The SOAR platform will provide a localized, self-organizing and constantly updated information resource for people with the capacity to help. Feedback from the end-users will continuously improve the platform. Every participant will be responsible for bringing their knowledge and creativity to the entire network, both online and face-to-face. Any social benefit organization will be able to contact groups or individuals for an exchange of ideas, plans, resources, volunteer interests, meeting times and places, best practices, advocacy efforts, awareness of parallel projects, current project status and unmet needs.

Goals: less duplication of effort, gaps detected quickly, volunteers matched with opportunities to serve, resources utilized more efficiently, accelerate the effectiveness of individual efforts and create a refreshing synergy of goals that is beyond what was previously considered possible. 

UPDATE: April 5, 2020

The SOAR project has been abandoned for lack of support. I spent 20 minutes watching this tutorial video. Knowing what went into the software engineering of SOAR, the back end of the recovers.org platform must have required thousands of hours of work! I was only part way into the tutorial when I saw that it surpasses my dream for SOAR.

It seems to me that at least one community organizer on a recovers.org site for Central Lane County would have to be a full-time, paid position, funded by the county, the city or both together. It would be of great value to local government to have a site administrator.

UPDATE: September 29, 2019

The beta iteration of SOAR has been launched as a searchable directory of congregations that have programs to alleviate the conditions of poverty. Additional sectors of our community, including business, government, NGO’s and advocacy organizations, will be added at a later date, along with specific projects and their measurable outcomes. You are invited to visit and critique this experimental platform at 

wecansoar.today 

Please send questions or feedback to David.

UPDATE: April 13, 2019

MVP Studio is a partnership of 5 local tech professionals who want to bring the civic-minded projects initiated at Hack-for-a-Cause forward to full functionality. ECAN is now partnered with MVP in the beta testing of SOAR. It is both exciting to have this support and sobering to know the amount of technical work it is going to take to do this successfully. The first iteration of the SOAR platform (and there will be several, as modifications are made in response to feedback) will stir a great deal of interest. If you're one of those early adopters, contact David about being part of the beta testing.

UPDATE: February 8, 2019

The most impressive part of a story about one person's compassion inspiring others is the viral nature of compassion and the networking technology that amplified one act into 3 times its original size. To do this deliberately is the goal of SOAR, the subject of my 5-minute talk at Ignite TAO on Feb. 8. 

UPDATE: January 30, 2019

"I do very much appreciate the effort you have all made with this project, and I’m impressed. With the progress you have made. Seems like you have a fine board. Kudos to all." ~ Kitty Piercy, former mayor of Eugene

UPDATE: December 15, 2018

ECAN has been blessed by the efforts of employees of CBT Nuggets, who have donated their time and software engineering skills valued at approximately $20,000 in the 36 weeks since Hack for a Cause: April 6-8 2018. In the opinion of a cyber-security business owner, they developed a "rock solid" web application that has a potential to grow and expand with input from the people who use it. There is now a soft target date of March 15, 2019, for the launch of the beta test, following fresh energy acquired at the Eugene Open Festival by networking with others in the tech community. Interviews with Heron, Nathan and other professionals at that event are presented in this video:

The potential first recipients of the open source SOAR software: 

the 225 International Cities of Peace seen here 

in addition to 

approximately 440 cities that have affirmed the Charter for Compassion.